to cherish from afar
by Lovebites and Popcorn
Summary: So I can learn the importance of a smile.


**to cherish from afar.**

_So I can learn the importance of a smile._

_**Author's note:**__ So then I told myself, 'let's be creative and take a different approach'._

* * *

Sometimes, a featherlike smile is all it really takes to make or break a person. Just one small smile—a minuscule quirk of the lips in the upward direction. Just a smile. It never has to be a big smile—it slays its sole purpose if it's anything too gaudy, too lurid. Only something petite. Something elfin. Something precious and rare.

Naminé smiled at me once. She had the most stunningly beautiful smile, resembling a delicate flurry of red-white lustre. Pastel-soft on her lips, like serenity painted in pale, rosy cerise tones. It struck you into wonder and acquiescence. But whenever she smiled, there were fragments of curled varnish slivers in her blue-crystal eyes, stabbed through at random intervals along her glacial irises. So sad, so melancholy, like her world had fallen apart at the seams and floated to the end of a midnight abyss of dead flowers.

And there we would stand, along one of the damp, snow-covered pavements under those bright, dazzling Christmas lights. So grand, so vivid and so colourful. And cold, trace-thin flakes would flutter down into our hair; the night would be frigid and frosty but homely and pleasant. After all, it was the best part of the year. Winter.

And oh, Kairi's strawberry grin—honey-laden and sweet as a red-green-white pepperminted candycane—would be filled with the innocence of happiness, like morning sun's rays and luminescence of neon signs in Tokyo at midnight. Her cupid-bow lips were so tiny and small and child-like. And of course, she loved taking Naminé's hand in one of hers, to tug her, as well as her boyfriend, towards the stores down Starlight Avenue. Oh, she loved those little boutiques with heated interiors and stylish mannequins and silvery-sparkle streamers and garlands.

"Mistletoe, mistletoe! Lovely, green bunches of mistletoe!" she would sing. And then she would turn to her boyfriend and shoot him an extravagantly blissful smile—like she lived on cloud nine—before looking to her left. "Be joyful, Nami!" the girl would exclaim shrilly, voice high and tinkling, light laughter mixed with her pretty grin.

But Naminé would always hesitate.

And Kairi would always catch on.

"Nami? What's wrong?" Kairi would never fail to enquire, tone concerned and suddenly fretful. And she would stop and give her friend a quizzical frown. She would ask if she wanted to sit down at one of the little sidewalk benches—they'd been shopping for awhile and it was late. But the pallid, colourless girl would always shrug it off and say she'd be fine… _keep walking, c'mon, weren't we going to the arcade?_ she'd say, voice soft and low and mellifluous, glancing around for awhile, catching everyone's eyes.

And then Demyx would snort.

Demyx, the boy with the dyed purple-and-blue mohawk and the auburn-tinted aviator sunglasses—yes, even at night!—and the fifteen silver bangles along his wrists; nine on his right, six on his left. Always tagged along with the girls because he loved them so much. Because he loved Naminé so much. Because Naminé was always poignantly cheerless for some strange reason. He always felt the need to tag along, to provide for some harmonious atmosphere, or so he'd claim.

"Nam, let me give you a ride, piggyback style, okay?" he'd say to her, beaming like a supernova fallen from the heavens above. "And I'll carry you all the way to the arcade. And then we'll play whatever you want. Air hockey, Time Crisis Four, Gun Bullet, Virtual Baseball, whatever you want, honey bun!"

Naminé would shake her head, thick navy-blue scarf billowing in the biting wind around her neck. "I'm too old for piggyback rides, Dem. I'm sixteen. You probably wouldn't even be able to lift me off the ground."

"Oh, twiddle twaddle! You're so tiny! You probably weigh less than a peacock's feather. Come on!" And he'd sweep her off her feet, carry her bridal style—not even piggyback—all the way down to the end of Starlight Avenue. He'd never give her a chance to protest, and besides, he'd known from the start that she would stop her feeble objections and disapproving complaints as soon as he picked her up like that; like Romeo to his Juliet. And her little slender fingers would wrap around the base of his neck and intertwine at the back.

Kairi would laugh at the sight of her two friends clowning around like a newly-wed couple. Her own hand would be clasped in her boyfriend's, and they would be swinging their arms to and fro, backwards and forwards, like a pendulum. Yes. Her boyfriend, the golden-haired boy of no more than seventeen. And Roxas was always special because he was always there. Mature and well-mannered, but high-spirited and sociable. He'd be ever-present, with Kairi, like an angelic guardian with an invisible halo of gleaming light. A shadow, to look after her and the others, even if he weren't the eldest. A shepard to a flock of sheep. He smiled. Occasionally. Like when Kairi would give him a small peck on the cheek. Or when Kairi would whisper sweet nothings into his ear. Or when Naminé would buy him a stick of blue-coloured fairy floss from the street vendor. They were precious. And rare.

And they would make their meandering way to the nearby Time Zone. The girls would be laughing at some obscure joke that Demyx would make. Something about rocket ships and paper cranes and bubblegum. It was _always_ something about rocket ships and paper cranes and bubblegum.

And I would always be the silent one. Just watching from behind.

Only because I never smiled.

I couldn't ever bring myself to.

* * *

_**Author's note:**__ But then in the end, once finished, I had no idea it would turn out so odd. _

_Interpret it however you want. :)  
_


End file.
